


A Council Of Queens

by glasscannon



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Armistice, Dickon is Sansa's biggest fan, F/M, Gen, POV Sansa, POV Tyrion, Political Negotiations, Sansa Stark deserves better, an oblique view into a new marriage, and Dickon Tarly is here to provide it, as we all knew he would be, goes AU near the beginning of s7e5 and waves goodbye to canon after that, inspired by a tumblr post, shamelessly lifting lines from Black Sails, this crack ship is way too much fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 05:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11822244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasscannon/pseuds/glasscannon
Summary: At Jon Snow's request, Sansa Stark had gone to King's Landing to stand in for her brother in the negotiations to end the war. Her new husband, however, may not be on quite the same page.





	A Council Of Queens

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/gifts).



> This story ignores all timeline considerations, and goes completely AU from near the beginning of s7e5. It was inspired by the way my brain connected this Tumblr post http://sheliesshattered.tumblr.com/post/164255921053/hopepeaceandblackgirlmagic-drbobbimorse to something Billy Bones (played by Tom Hopper) says to Charles Vane near the end of the second season of Black Sails.
> 
> This is dedicated to PrimaryBufferPanel, my cowriter on All Hands, who told me to have this Dicksa one-shot on her desk by morning, and hey I'm only like 14 hours late. :D
> 
> My thanks to both PBP and Jezunya for late night and early morning beta'ing on this.
> 
> Enjoy!

They were well into their second hour negotiating the armistice when Sansa heard Dickon snort lightly. She glanced over at her husband, but kept most of her attention to the map of Westeros spread on the council room table in front of her, on the little wooden figures that represented hundreds if not thousands of people each. He'd been quiet through this whole process, as she supposed was expected of him, but it wasn't the sort of noise she was used to hearing out of him, even at home in Winterfell.

He met her gaze from his place seated along the wall with the other guards and Hands — "I don't have a Hand, I'm not a Queen," she had said earlier, when arguing to keep him with her throughout the negotiations — but his expression was impassive. With an inner shrug, Sansa dismissed it as nothing. She turned her focus back to the discussion at the table, to standing in for Jon as best she could, and to holding her own when faced with both the Mother of Dragons and the Mother of Joffrey.

Another half hour passed before Dickon made the noise again. A snort, clear as anything, and derisive, if Sansa knew her husband at all, after nearly two months wed. It was loud enough to be heard over what Cersei was saying, and while usually Sansa would support anything that resulted in the sour look currently adorning the Lannister Queen's face, the middle of negotiating an end to the war was probably not the best time for it.

Cersei continued on as if nothing had happened, though her expression spoke volumes about her displeasure. Sansa shot Dickon a look, brows raised, eyes wide and disapproving. If he had something to say there were better ways of going about it, and she trusted he knew that. Lord Tyrion had spoken up several times already, it wasn't as though it was a complete mystery. Dickon looked at her for a few breaths, then shook his head ever so slightly and folded his arms across his chest.

She turned back to the table, catching Queen Daenerys watching their exchange silently as Cersei continued to talk about what she was owed for the capture of Casterly Rock. Sansa met Daenerys's eyes with a polite smile, and tried not to quail under the Dragon Queen's gaze. It wasn't that she was _scared_ of the small woman, she just wasn't used to having her marriage on display quite like this.

They barely made it another twenty minutes before the snort made itself known again, this time cutting across something Daenerys had been saying about ancestral homelands, and quite suddenly the entire room went still.

"Something you'd like to add, Lord Tarly?" Daenerys asked, giving him a frosty look that was at least tinged with genuine curiosity.

Dickon held her gaze for a long moment, and Sansa barely breathed. The last time he had come face to face with the Dragon Queen, it had nearly cost him his life. If Daenerys had killed him then, at the edge of that battlefield, Sansa wouldn't have given him a moment's thought, but now— well, a lot could change in the span of a few months.

"No, Your Grace," Dickon finally said, inclining his head once, his voice low and even. Sansa looked over at him again, studying his expression. He gave away very little, but she knew him well enough by now to know that he was _angry_ about something, though what she could hardly say.

"Perhaps you'd like to get some _air_ , lord husband?" Sansa asked. "We're likely to be at this the rest of the day, at least."

He looked stubborn for a second, mulish, but then nodded. "I'll be— right outside," he said, getting to his feet.

The room was silent as he made his way to the door and left, closing it behind him. Sansa's gaze had tracked him, and when he was gone she looked over to find Lord Tyrion and Queen Daenerys exchanging a weighty glance, while Cersei watched them all from behind her wine goblet. Tyrion nodded to Daenerys and stood as well, leaving by the same door.

"I hope he hasn't been too much of a difficulty?" Daenerys said to Sansa, sounding genuinely concerned, perhaps due to her role in arranging their match, through Jon.

"Not at all," Sansa replied, shaking her head. "He's never like this at home, I can't imagine what's upset him."

"Perhaps all this southern air has reminded him of his true allegiances," Cersei said, smiling in her snide way.

"Or perhaps he's just as anxious as I am to be safely back home in Winterfell," Sansa returned in a flat tone, then looked back to Daenerys. "I'm sorry, Your Grace, you were saying?"

 

* * *

 

Tyrion didn't have to look far to find Dickon Tarly. The man had gone all of about twenty feet and installed himself on the bench at the turn of the hallway, facing the council room doors. He looked up when Tyrion exited, some sort of agitation flashing across his features, but he settled back into his sullen posture when he recognized Tyrion.

Tyrion made it down the hall and onto the bench before Dickon spoke.

"Come to remind me about the threat of dragonfire?" he asked.

"Come to make sure you don't have a sinus infection," Tyrion retorted. "What was that in there?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "I should keep my opinions to myself."

Tyrion looked up and down the empty hallway. "You might notice, at the moment we are to ourselves."

"It's not— They're negotiating to end the war in there, no one wants to hear from me."

"While I appreciate your instincts for not picking a fight in the middle of the Council of Queens, there's a reason Lady Sansa argued for you in place of a Hand. I for one would like to hear what you have to say, what had you so congested in there."

"It's nothing useful or constructive, it's just— You're all down here arguing over what you _think_ is yours, what you _think_ you're owed. While Sansa is—" He cut himself off, shaking his head.

"Lady Sansa is…?" Tyrion prompted.

Lord Tarly took a deep breath, gazed fixed somewhere on the floor tiles between them and the council room, and let it out slowly. "Sansa is focused on how we _survive_ this. She's worried about whether or not people have enough _food_. If their homes are warm enough, if their animals are dying. How many people we can take into Winterfell, should the need arise, and how we can increase that number. It's hard to listen to all that in there, when I know the reality for the common folk in the north — the reality for common folk everywhere, as winter moves south. That's what we should be focused on, not who wins the right to sit on the world's most uncomfortable chair."

Tyrion had to smother a surprised, outraged laugh. "Westeros has been in a state of near-constant civil war for a generation, and you boil it down to _who has the right to sit in the world's most uncomfortable chair_?"

Dickon shrugged. "Well it is, isn't it?"

The trouble was, he wasn't _wrong_. "Have _you_ ever sat in it?" Tyrion asked rather than answer.

He eyed Tyrion warily. "Of course not."

"Would you like to?" Tyrion asked, tone easy. "Nip down to the throne room, have a try while no one is looking?" He tilted his head down the hall, in the general direction of the throne room.

Dickon's gaze followed the motion and lingered for a moment, before cutting back to the council room doors. "No, I'd better stay here."

Tyrion watched him a long minute, considered this man whose life he'd argued to save. "Good answer."

"I mean no disrespect to the Dragon Queen," Dickon went on, as if Tyrion hadn't brought up the Iron Throne at all, "but _ancestral homelands_ shouldn't be our concern right now. It's about the Night King, now. Sansa knows that. King Jon knows that, it's why he's barely left the Wall these last months. I don't know why no one else can see it."

"It's not as _real_ here, yet. It hasn't even snowed in King's Landing, yet — it's hard to get excited over ice-zombies from north of the Wall when winter still seems like a myth made up by nursemaids to explain away those months when long sleeves become more comfortable."

Dickon shook his head. "By the time winter truly reaches King's Landing, there'll be thousands of people, millions, maybe, without enough food to see them through, and no way to grow more. And meanwhile the war continues to destroy crops, divert food to the soldiers, and take men away from their families to kill their neighbors. It can't go on."

"As you said, they're in there discussing how to end the war. And that sometimes involves debating who owes whom — particularly when negotiating with my sister. The goal of this is a peace accord that will allow us all to focus on the enemy to the north."

"You know the Dragon Queen better than anyone, at this point," Dickon said. "What do you think, does she give a shit about the common folk?"

"You didn't see her in Meereen," Tyrion replied. "She more than gives a shit. She'll burn down the world for them." He turned to look at Dickon, this man whose life they had saved by foisting him onto Sansa Stark of all people. "I think Queen Daenerys will hear your points, if they're presented well, in the spirit in which you mean them: as an advocate for the people."

"And not by snorting at her, you mean?"

"That'd be a start. We're nearly due for a break for lunch, and I know my sister well enough to know that she is _slightly_ less of a heartless bitch when she isn't drinking on an empty stomach. Let me bring up your concerns once we've reconvened. Perhaps we can redirect the Queens' conversation toward the effects of winter on the population, and our mutual enemy north of the Wall."

"You would do that?" Dickon asked, tone wary.

"If you'll allow me," Tyrion replied, shrugging. "Presented the right way, no one is a better advocate for the common person than Daenerys Targaryen."

Dickon was silent for a long stretch. "That's what Westeros needs, now," he said eventually. "An advocate for the people. An advocate with dragons that can kill White Walkers, all the better."

"The dragons do come in handy, don't they?"

"Thank you, by the way. For talking her down from… all that," Dickon said. He didn't need to be more specific, Tyrion knew he could only be referring to that moment, more than two months ago now, when Dickon and his father had faced imminent death by dragonfire. It was only when Tyrion had pointed out Jon Snow's connection to Samwell Tarly that Daenerys had been persuaded to see them for the strategic asset they were.

"I was against your marriage, you know," Tyrion said after a time. "I didn't think we should do that to Lady Sansa again, a political match. It took your brother and King Jon arguing in your favor to sway me. I know how protective the King is over his lady sister — nothing short of his approval would have moved me."

"It was Sam that convinced him, I think," Dickon said. "Though why he would, I don't know."

"As I recall, he was trying to save your life, and save you from being sent directly to the Wall to be wight-fodder." Tyrion left _like your father_ off the end of that sentence.

"I know, and I'm grateful. I still don't understand _why_. I could have been a better brother to him." He sighed, leaning his head back against the stone wall of the hallway. "I _know_ I'm lucky. And I would count myself lucky even if the alternatives to marriage hadn't been death or the Wall."

"It's treating you well, then?" Tyrion asked, unable to quite keep the sarcasm from his voice. "Being Lord of Winterfell?"

Dickon fixed him with a serious look and didn't answer, but instead said, "She told me about you, about when you were married."

"Did she now?" Tyrion had no idea what to say to that. What did you even say to the man who was married to the woman you were once wed to, no matter how unconsummated that marriage had been?

"She told me you were _kind_ to her," Dickon answered, surprising him. "When you had every excuse not to be. Thank you for that, too."

"Didn't do it for you," Tyrion said, at a loss for anything else.

"I know that," he replied, perhaps a bit sharp. "But Sansa deserves allies, deserves people who have her back. You were that for her when no one else could be, or would be. I'm grateful for it, is all."

"And now that person is you," Tyrion said.

"Not just me," Dickon said with a shrug. "King Jon, of course, and Arya and Bran. Lady Brienne and Podrick, the people of Winterfell, the Lords of the north — and even more so the Ladies of the north, I truly believe that Sansa and Lady Mormont could sway the north to whatever cause they chose. The common folk love her for the care she shows them. They're loyal to King Jon, of course, but they're also loyal to _her_. Sansa might be the only one in the Council of Queens who isn't technically a queen, but…"

"But there's more to being a queen than having a claim on the world's most uncomfortable chair," Tyrion finished for him.

Dickon snorted, Tyrion thought this time in amusement. "Right."

"You raise good points, Lord Tarly," Tyrion said after a long moment. "Points that need raising. I can make no promises regarding my sister, but I will bring this to Queen Daenerys over lunch, and see that it is brought up in the Council this afternoon."

Dickon regarded him seriously, then said. "Thank you, Lord Tyrion. I'm glad the Dragon Queen has someone like you to give her council."

Tyrion held his gaze and said just as seriously, "And I'm glad Lady Sansa has someone like _you_."

At the other end of the hall, the doors to the council room opened, drawing their attention. Cersei swept out first, talking to her Hand and barely acknowledging Tyrion and Dickon as she passed. Daenerys and Sansa followed a moment behind, talking quietly as they exited. They seemed to notice Tyrion and Dickon on the bench at the same moment, and he watched comprehension and then calculation flit across both their faces. And then Lady Sansa smiled and came forward, gaze fixed on Dickon.

"Escort me to lunch, lord husband?" she asked as he stood.

"It would be my honor, my lady," Dickon replied more formally than Tyrion had thought to expect, offering her his arm. Behind them, Daenerys twitched one eyebrow upwards.

She came to stand by him as they silently watched the newlyweds depart to their quarters for a private lunch, her Unsullied guards and Blood Riders trailing a polite distance behind.

"Still glad we saved his life?" she asked archly.

"More than ever," Tyrion replied honestly. "Come, I'll fill you in over lunch."

**Author's Note:**

> (And, dear reader, once you've run through all the Dicksa fic out there, please do come join us over in the Ashebones rowboat. You'll never meet a lovelier group of people, and there's quite a lot of crossover with what's landed you here, I expect.)


End file.
